Syriana: Realism or a Left-Wing Assault on Oil?

Oil companies are evil and the root of that evil is Americas
endless thirst for oil. At least thats the spin of the new movie Syriana,
which the media have called powerful, ambitious and Something
you might even call realism.

The film stars actor George Clooney as a CIA operative as part of
several converging story lines about oil company corruption and
Mideast politics. Critics and journalists have seized on the story
line to speak favorably of its left-wing, anti-industry message and
simply to blast the Bush administration.

In a November 23 Los Angeles Times review headlined Perils of
capitalism, Kenneth Turan wasnt subtle about the connection. The
overarching focus on enhancing reality is in the service of making
us believe that what were seeing on screen in Syriana just might
be happening at this very moment, that a shadowy, amoral cabal of
untouchable Washington power brokers might be pulling the strings
that control the world, he said.

Turan claimed that writer/director Stephen Gaghan uses the cover of
genre picture-making to present a scathing critique of how America
acts to protect its interests, how we try to get the world to dance
to our tune, and what the consequences of those actions can be.

ABCs Good Morning America had stars from the film on back-to-back
days before its limited release in late November. On November 22,
while talking to actor Jeffrey Wright, Diane Sawyer passed along the
movies view of the oil industry: Making a thriller, for instance,
about the oil business and how it takes everybodys life who gets
near it, and turns it around and sometimes sacrifices it.

The previous day, she ended her interview with Clooney urging
viewers to see it. As I said, its pulse-pounding stuff and a
really ambitious movie. Learn something, said Sawyer.

What viewers would learn was that the film painted all of the oil
men in the film as greedy, corrupt, and thriving off of the chaos
America supposedly generates in the Middle East. The major oil
company characters were intent on pulling off a merger despite
breaking the law. Their legal representatives took the same
Machiavellian approach and an energy analyst played by Matt Damon
leveraged the accidental death of his child into a
multimillion-dollar business opportunity. Pakistani oil workers
turned suicide bombers received more positive treatment.

According to the December 7 New York Times, Syriana is one of the
seasons offerings that have overt social purposes and activist
campaigns attached to their movies.

And while its political attitude is unmistakable that the
American need for oil shamefully depends on Middle East chaos its
fleshed-out characters never lecture the audience, argued Caryn
James of the Times.

In a discussion session after a December 7 preview showing in
Washington, D.C., director Gaghan said he tried to keep from being
an advocate: I dont think anybody wants to be preached to, least
of all by a Hollywood filmmaker. Gaghan did add that he had a
different, more upbeat ending originally but that offered too much
hope for these times.

However, Gaghan has used the film as part of an effort to complain
about American dependence on oil. His discussion session included
representatives from left-wing environmental groups such as the
Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council, as well as
self-described conservatives. Those groups are involved in an
initiative called Set America Free that claims the United States
can immediately begin to introduce a global economy based on
next-generation fuels and vehicles that can utilize them.

Syriana is also involved with a Web site called
Participate.net, which is running a campaign
to to reduce our dependence on oil. According to the site, Oil
addiction. It saps Americas economic strength, pollutes our
environment, and jeopardizes national security.

The reviews of the film have kept with that political message. In A.
O. Scotts November 23 New York Times review, it was obvious that
the media were OK with the message. Someone is sure to complain
that the world doesnt really work the way it does in Syriana;
that oil companies, law firms and Middle Eastern regimes are not
really engaged in semiclandestine collusion, to control the global
oil supply and thus influence the destinies of millions of people.
OK, maybe. Call me nave or paranoid, or liberal, or whatever the
favored epithet is this week but Im inclined to give Mr. Gaghan
the benefit of the doubt, said Scott.

Scott added that it pushes beyond the clichs of heroism and
suspense toward something a good deal more unsettling. Something you
might even call realism.

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